


From Now on Our Troubles Will Be Out of Sight

by Overnighter



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Angst, Family Drama, Gen, Implied Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-22
Updated: 2012-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-16 20:51:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overnighter/pseuds/Overnighter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes even a quarterback with a golden arm needs someone to feed him cookies. Even if that someone is the girlfriend of the boy who should be his sworn enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Now on Our Troubles Will Be Out of Sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_begonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_begonia/gifts).



It was nearly almost empty on this side of the school this late in the afternoon.

He was supposed to be waiting for his father outside by the locker rooms, but his father wasn’t due for nearly an hour. It was so hot that the school nurse had actually come out to the fields and made them stop afternoon practice, but when J.D. called home his mother was out showing a house and his father’s office said he wouldn’t be back in Dillon for at least an hour, maybe more. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the other guys - or even that they didn’t like him - but he was the only freshman on the varsity squad, which meant the guys his own age didn’t really know him and the older ones were mostly only nice to him because Coach told them to be, as if J.D. wouldn’t figure that out on his own. Besides, a half practice meant that everyone else had scattered immediately to find girls or trouble or whatever it was that the older guys found when every second of their lives weren’t run by enormous color-coded calendars in their family’s kitchens. 

So he had showered quickly and come back into the school before Coach could find him, or send Tim or one of the other boys after him, back to where it was at least marginally cooler in the air-conditioned hallways. His first thought had been to head to the library and get a head start on homework, because if he got everything done and ready for his dad to review sometimes he could watch a half-hour of The Office before bed, even if his mother thought it was a little too racy. His dad liked to let J.D. think that he was getting away with things. 

He had tried the library, but the Mathletes had commandeered all the tables and the cafeteria was filled Booster moms painting signs for Friday’s game. He intended to sneak into one of the empty classrooms instead, but it seemed that this wing wasn't entirely empty either. 

“Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick, if it were any hotter I think we’d actually be melting like the goddamned wicked witch,” a throaty girl’s voice said, and he stopped just outside the Domestic Arts classroom to see two blonde girls inside. 

The tall one – the one talking – he sort of recognized from the halls, but the other one was definitely Coach’s daughter. He started to back away, but of course he managed to bang into the door to the classroom instead. His father always said that whatever magic grace he had on the football field never followed him home after, and J.D. knew he wasn’t wrong. 

“Landry, get your ass in here, and if you make one domestic goddess joke I swear that I will...” the tall girl trailed off as she caught sight of him. 

“Oh, you. Baby Six, right? You here with Landry?” she asked. J.D. was trying not to be intimidated, but she was a girl who was taller than he was, and she looked pretty pissed off. 

“No, ma’am,” he said automatically and she rolled her eyes. 

“You did not just call me ‘ma’am,’ I know you didn’t,” she said, but she was opening the classroom door all the way, “Well, come in if you’re coming. You didn’t see Landry on your way here?” 

J.D. shook his head and followed her into the classroom. He wasn’t really sure why – he had homework to do, and she didn’t exactly look thrilled to see him, and Landry was apparently on his way. Landry, who was best friends with Matt Saracen and who he was pretty sure hated his guts and would not be glad to see him anywhere, under any circumstances. 

“Hey, J.D.” 

Julie Taylor waved at him a little from her perch on one of the kitchen counters, and J.D. startled a little. She wasn’t dating Matt, exactly – at least he didn’t think so – but they were something, and he hadn’t thought that she would be glad to see him much, either, but she didn’t seem particularly disturbed. 

“Hey, Julie,” he answered, shifting his backpack. She was swinging her legs back and forth in time to something playing softly from a laptop, and licking a wad of dough from her fingers. 

“I thought he came up with Landry, but I think that boy is hiding from me. And he promised he’d help. It’s not like I didn’t see them coming off the fields a half hour ago,” the tall girl snapped, and J.D. took a step back involuntarily. 

Julie just shrugged around a mouthful of dough. 

“Matt had a shift. Maybe Landry gave him a ride? It’s too hot to walk all the way down to the Alamo Freeze,” she said and waved J.D. closer. “Besides, it looks like we’ve got a helper now anyway, right, J.D.?” 

J.D. came over to lean against the counter. 

“Matt’s got a job? During the season?” he blurted without thinking. He knew that he had gotten the shot at QB1 mostly because of the grace of God and his golden arm, but that didn’t mean he didn’t take it seriously. No wonder Matt was tired and unfocused some days. J.D. couldn’t imagine what his dad would do if he tried to suggest that. 

The tall girl made an elaborate face at him and nudged Julie off the counter with her elbow. 

“Yeah. You see, there’s this thing that we regular folks call money. It does exciting things like keep the lights on. It’s a real thrill,” she said, and then nudged Julie again. “Come on, we can’t wait on Landry anymore, we’ve got to be out of here before six.” 

J.D. blushed, but Julie just shook her head at him and punched the tall girl lightly on the arm. 

“Quit being mean, Tyra, it’s not like he knows,” she snapped, then turned to J.D. with yet another shrug. “Matt’s dad away in Iraq. He lives with his grandma. He needs the job. A couple of the guys work; my dad knows, so it’s okay.” 

“I didn’t know,” he said, but she just handed him a square of royal-blue cloth across the counter. 

“No reason to. It’s – don’t make a big deal out of it, is all,” she said. “Want an apron?” 

He unfolded the classroom apron and looked up in surprise, but she and the tall – Tyra – were already over by the industrial refrigerators. 

“What exactly are y’all doing in here?” he asked finally. 

Julie turned back with a smile. 

“Tyra’s running for office. Student council president. You’re helping us bake victory cookies.” 

It seemed weird that no one questioned the fact that he’d just shown up, that no one was glaring at him or demanding answers from him. He was pretty sure that these were Matt’s closest friends, or some of them anyway, and they weren’t acting like he had cheated Matt out of his senior year, out of his birthright or whatever. 

J.D. didn’t have too many friends back in Dallas, but he didn’t think the ones he did have would have been so nice to his replacement. Or maybe they were, right now, hanging out with the new guy, talking about how much cooler he was than J.D., who wasn’t allowed to stay out on a school night or drink pop or talk on the phone after eight o’clock, even on the weekends. He wasn’t sure. 

“I don’t know how to bake,” he said nervously, as Julie and Tyra both came back with their arms filled with eggs and milk. 

Tyra smiled at him as she dumped her load carefully on the counter in front of him. 

“Me neither. That’s why these are victory cookies – I don’t dare give ‘em to anyone before they vote.” 

Julie laughed and pointed to a dog-eared book on the other counter. 

“My mom sent a recipe. It’s really not that hard. Just following directions, mostly.” 

She handed J.D. some of her eggs and gestured with her chin to the a metal bowl at the end of the counter. 

“Can you crack six of them? You know how to do that?” 

He nodded and followed her steady stream of instructions, trying not to think of what his dad would say if he saw him with an apron on in the Domestic Arts kitchen. J.D. was supposed to take a Home Ec unit last year in middle school – cooking and sewing, metal shop and carpentry – but somehow his dad had pulled strings and he’d ended up with study hall and extra coaching instead. 

“We don’t need those hands around power tools,” his dad had said, before J.D. had even had a chance to argue. 

He wasn’t usually allowed in the kitchen. His mom had a routine that she followed, and he mostly got in the way, and all his meals were carefully counted out on the white board that lived below the wipe-off calendar. There were an awful lot of things keeping track of J.D. every moment of every day, but this was unexpected - unscheduled - and despite the fact that these people didn’t know him from Adam, it was still more fun than he’d had since moving to Dillon. 

The girls were giggling a little, and dancing in time to the music and every once in a while once of them would bump a soft, solid hip into one of his as they shimmied a baking sheet in or out of the oven. They slid the cookies out onto cooling racks across the counters, and J.D. looked up to see Tyra holding one out to him, the chocolate chips warm and oozing. 

“Oh, thanks, but I – I don’t really eat sweets,” he said softly. His body was a temple, and he was working on convincing himself of that fact. His father said that treats weren’t treats if they happened all the time, but Tyra looked skeptical. 

“No one doesn’t eat a warm chocolate chip cookie, unless they’re, like, diabetic or something. Eat a cookie. You made them, you should at least get a reward.” 

She talked in a rough, amused voice, and shoved the cookie into his mouth as he was shaking his head. It was pretty much the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life, and when he looked back at them, both girls were beaming. 

“I told you my mom’s recipe was okay – look at that face!” 

Tyra rolled her eyes again – she seemed to do that a lot – but she was smiling. 

“Fine, so maybe they can be campaign cookies.” 

She turned around to drop the last batch of dough onto the now-empty cookie sheets, but Julie kept staring at him. 

“What did you come up here for, if Matt and Landry didn’t send you?” she asked. J.D. felt his stomach swoop, but she didn’t sound angry. 

“I was just looking for an empty classroom,” he admitted. “I have a bunch of math homework from Mr. Jacobsen.” 

Julie raised an eyebrow. 

“I thought you were a freshman – that’s, like, Honors Geometry,” she said. J.D. looked down at the racks of cooling cookies between them. 

“I know. I wanted – I always thought I wanted to build houses, you know, design them, and you need a lot of math. So I – they let me take an advanced class.” 

His father had been so – not angry, really, but annoyed. He wasn’t going to need to be an architect, his dad explained, not with an arm like his, but J.D. kind of liked the idea of doing something – being something – that was permanent, that made a difference to real people somewhere. His mom had been the one to convince his father that advanced classes could make him look more like a scholar-athlete. 

“That’s a pretty good class,” Julie said finally, “Although I didn’t take it ‘til the next year. You should talk to Landry – he’s in AP Calc and stuff. And Matt likes to draw – not houses and stuff, but it’s sort of the same, right?” 

J.D. nodded. He still wasn’t sure why no one had called him on it yet, why no one had brought up the fact that he’d ruined Matt’s last year, his last chance. Instead, they kept talking like they could all be friends. 

Julie grinned at him, then looked over his shoulder, smile widening. 

“Hey, you got here just in time to eat the cookies of our labors,” she called, and J.D. turned to see Landry walking though the door. If he was surprised to see J.D. there, he didn’t seem to register it. 

“Landry, I can’t believe you managed to skip out on me. Good thing you sent your boy J.D. here to give us a hand,” Tyra said, but she came over with a smile and wrapped an arm around Landry’s neck. 

“Hey, hey – I was keeping Matt from dying of heat stroke – a noble sacrifice to friendship if I ever heard one. Plus, he sent over some soft serve to go with the cookies, if y’all are nice to me,” he said, nuzzling at Tyra’s ear in a way that J.D. couldn’t quite interpret. Landry looked over to him and grinned. 

“Hey, J.D. Your daddy’s downstairs looking for you,” Landry said with a nod. J.D. startled and glanced up at the clock. He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. 

“Shoot, I gotta go,” he said, looking around for his discarded schoolbag, but Landry was holding it up for him. 

“I just got here with the ice cream, though. Why don’t you give him a call, let him know I’ll take you home?” he asked easily. J.D. stared at him and he shrugged. “What, I got hot fudge on my face still?” 

“No, no, it’s just – I can’t. He’s waiting. Just – thanks,” he said softly. 

Landry nodded and handed over his bag. 

“Suit yourself. But hey, my band – Crucifictorious – we’re doing an all-ages show this weekend. You and the other freshman should come,” he said and Tyra and Julie were both laughing and shaking their heads. 

“Don’t do it! He’s luring the freshmen in because he knows how bad they are,” Julie said, but she was grinning, too. “And he’s not mentioning that by ‘all-ages show’ he really means ‘rocking out in the church basement Sunday night.’”

“You – you’re in a band?” he asked, and he realized that he sounded ridiculous. “A band and football? And Calc? How – how do you do it?” 

Landry shrugged. 

“I don’t seem to require as much sleep as the next person,” he said, and J.D. nodded. 

He didn’t understand this school, where people could have jobs and bands and interests even during the season. He wasn’t sure what his dad would have to say about that, but he was already trying to figure out if Jesus trumped wind sprints on the scale of his obligations. Maybe he could convince his mother that Sunday night church was a good idea. Once he had her on his side, he usually had a shot, at least. 

“That – that sounds really cool, actually,” he said, “If my da—if I can be there, I will.” 

He turned to leave, but Tyra stopped him, pressing a bundled-up napkin into his hands. 

“Here. Don’t tell your dad, and it won’t spoil your supper. You should get some of the cookies of your labors, too.” 

He smiled, and waved as he turned and sprinted down the hall. He crammed one of the cookies into his mouth as he was running, then stopped at the school’s entrance and ate the other. They were still warm. 

His father was sitting by the entrance to the locker room, looking annoyed, with his cell phone up to his ear. J.D. slid into the front seat beside him with a sheepish wave, and his father pulled off, still talking. J.D. looked out the window, letting the rise and fall of his father’s business voice soothe him into a half-sleep, but before he could doze all the way, he heard the phone snap shut. 

“You have chocolate on your chin,” his father said. “Where were you?” 

J.D. sighed and turned towards him. 

“Practice let out early. I was just hanging around with a couple of the guys and their girlfriends. They were baking cookies for a school project,” he said softly. It wasn’t _not_ true. 

His father sighed. 

“J.D., we’ve talked about this before,” he said. “Now is not the time to get distracted...” 

“I called home! I called you, too. Nobody could come, and Mom said I should, you know, try to fit in. It was no big deal,” he protested. It wasn’t. No one would even remember he’d been there by tomorrow, he was sure. 

His dad smiled a little at that. 

“Your mother’s right. It’s important for team morale that you all get along. Maybe we’ll have another little get-together out at the house for everybody,” he said, and J.D. groaned to himself. Another giant party where he ended up hiding in the trophy room, hoping no one noticed his absence. 

“Sure," he said out loud, and his father nodded and turned his face back to the road. 

“It’s still too hot out for running, but if you do a couple miles on the treadmill before supper, I think we can call it even on the cookies, okay?” 

J.D. looked out over the asphalt road in front of them, heat rising up in waves still, even this late in the day. He’d already showered twice today, and he still hadn’t done his math homework, but at least the air-conditioning would be on at home. 

“Yes, sir,” he said, and counted the telephone poles all the way home.

**Author's Note:**

> For miss_begonia, who requested that someone feed poor J.D. some cookies. Back in the third season, his life was hard.


End file.
